21st Century’s 17 Biggest Data Breaches
DATA BREACHES -An incident where private or protected data is accessed, used, or released without authorization from the individuals who possess the information is referred to as a data breach. This article gives a list of major global data breaches in the 21st century.
Due to technological advancements, the occurrence of data breaches has become widespread. In the United States alone, data breaches increased significantly from 600 in 2010 to over 1800 in 2021. Similarly, the rest of the world has also experienced a sharp rise in annual security breaches.
The impact of data breaches is severe for victims, whether they are individuals, organizations, or governments. This impact can manifest as substantial financial losses, legal repercussions, harm to reputation, loss of privacy, and even pose a threat to national security.
List of the most significant data breaches since the year 2000
Yahoo experienced a breach between 2013-2014, impacting 3 billion user accounts, but went undetected for the subsequent three years.
Aadhaar suffered a cyberattack where hackers accessed the sensitive information of more than 1.2 billion registered Indians, selling the data on WhatsApp groups.
LinkedIn exposed the data of approximately 700 million users to criminal hackers on its professional networking service.
Sina Weibo, the Chinese social media giant, had the personal information of 538 million users exposed to hackers who took advantage of the platform’s API.
Facebook, despite a history of security breaches, faced a major incident in 2019, affecting 533 million users.
Marriott International (Starwood) exposed sensitive personal and financial information of 500 million customers to hackers.
Adult Friend Finder, a dating site, fell victim to a 2016 hack, revealing sensitive data of over 400 million customers.
MySpace garnered attention when hackers put the data of over 360 million users for sale on the dark web.
Adobe experienced a security breach where hackers not only stole source code but also exfiltrated the names and account credentials of over 150 million users.
Equifax faced severe criticism after a 2017 security breach that affected 147 million users.
eBay, from the two breaches it endured, had a serious 2014 hack that impacted 145 million customers.
Canva, the Australian graphics design service, exposed the data of 139 million users to attackers who then posted the information on the dark web.
Capital One gained attention after attackers confirmed stealing the personal and financial information of over 106 million customers.
JP Morgan Chase was targeted in an incident affecting both household consumers and small companies, as attackers exploited stolen data for identity fraud.
Uber, the popular commuting service, paid $100k to attackers to delete stolen data from about 57 million Uber users.
Home Depot had its payment system infected with malware by hackers, resulting in the theft of data from over 56 million customers.
Target Stores experienced a security breach where hackers accessed the vendor’s point-of-sale system to steal personal and financial data from about 40 million customers.